


Hymn To The Fallen

by vix_spes



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 17:52:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vix_spes/pseuds/vix_spes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock had resisted the urge to snoop at John’s service records so he’s pleasantly surprised one day when he realises that John has more hidden depths than he had previously thought...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hymn To The Fallen

**Author's Note:**

> I was in two minds whether or not to write this because it’s a somewhat delicate subject. However, I was listening to some music when this idea came to me and I just had to write it. If you’re interested, the two pieces of music were Michael Kamen’s Main Theme from Band of Brothers and John Williams’ Hymn to the Fallen from Saving Private Ryan. Thank you to thesmallhobbit for beta-ing this and thedragonsinger for looking this over/cheerleading for me.

_In Flanders fields the poppies blow_  
      Between the crosses, row on row,  
   That mark our place; and in the sky  
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly  
Scarce heard amid the guns below.  
  
We are the Dead. Short days ago  
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,  
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie,  
         In Flanders fields.  
  
Take up our quarrel with the foe:  
To you from failing hands we throw  
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.  
   If ye break faith with us who die  
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow  
         In Flanders fields.

~*~

Sherlock walked into the kitchen and put his remaining skin samples back in the fridge; he needed more hydrochloric acid and there was nowhere that he was going to get that from at two in the morning. He may as well go to bed. There wasn’t a case and the advantage of bed was that it was filled with a certain doctor sleeping soundly. Or so he hoped. John’s nightmares had been getting worse for several days now, nearly a week.  It was inexplicable given the fact that, up until now, John’s nightmares had actually been getting better. It had been months since he had had one and Sherlock couldn’t figure out why they had started again, although he had the feeling that John knew perfectly well. He was starting to have his suspicions though, particularly once John had turned off the television when certain documentaries started being shown. It was very rare that Sherlock wished that he could read people, rather than simply deducing things about them from what they were wearing, from their habits and various other things but reading people was John’s forte.

Each time Sherlock went to bed, he hoped that it was to see John sleeping soundly rather than tossing and turning, small cries and occasional unintelligible words escaping his lips. Tonight, he was still three feet from the door to their bedroom when he could hear the sounds of John’s distress. At first he had been surprised by the rather desperate wish that he could take this from John but he couldn’t. John wasn’t like him; he couldn’t delete things that he didn’t find necessary as Sherlock could. Whatever images John saw behind his flickering eyelids were his to deal with alone; Sherlock could do nothing but awkwardly offer comfort. Each night when he went to bed (and he was much better at actually sleeping in a bed when there was the added lure of a sleep-warm John in said bed), all he could do was wrap himself around John, cocoon him in a nest of blankets and Sherlock’s arms. Whisper in his ear and press kisses against the scarred shoulder in the hope that his actions somehow seeped into John’s subconscious. When morning came, he didn’t know what to say, where to even start. But John accepted that without hesitation, simply kissing Sherlock good morning as he had every day for the last seven months. As if he hadn’t spent a portion of the previous night tossing and turning in bed, whimpers and cries of distress escaping his mouth as his sweat dampened the sheets.

(~*~)

John knew exactly why his nightmares had chosen to reappear now and, if he was truthful with himself, he had expected it. It was unavoidable really given the time of year that was fast approaching. It was the end of October and the night terrors had started about ten days ago, getting progressively worse as each day passed. What was more distressing was the fact that he had at least another fortnight of this before they could get better.

In a way, it was awkward because Sherlock didn’t understand what was going on. He couldn’t understand why the nightmares had reappeared all of a sudden when they had disappeared soon after he had moved into Baker Street. The thing was, he didn’t know how to explain it to Sherlock, how Sherlock could comprehend what he was going through. How did he explain that he wasn’t watching the TV anymore because of the adverts for the poppy appeal and the numerous documentaries about the Afghan War, varying in focus between the troops, families of serving soldiers, the wounded who had been evacuated back to the UK or the warzone itself. All of it just filled his sleeping mind with vivid images of the combat zone and the events that had resulted in him returning to England.

Events that he wished he could forget. Things that he wished he could simply delete from his memory like Sherlock did, simply pick the memories that he no longer wanted to remember and then erase them. Normally he could distract himself, stop himself from remembering and running around London with Sherlock helped with that. But now, he was back to the same place that he was when he first met Sherlock. His nights were filled with flashbacks of soldiers in desert fatigues, shouting, blood and that blasted sand.

~*~

“JOHN! Where are you? We need to get to the Yard, Lestrade’s expecting us.”

Sherlock was getting impatient, gloves in his hand and his coat flaring out behind him as he paced up and down the living room. He came to a halt as he heard the tread of footsteps coming not from the room that they now shared, the room that had always been Sherlock’s, but the room that had belonged to John. When had John gone up there? Why had he gone up there? His eyes widened as he saw John stood in the doorway shrugging himself into his formal mess jacket.

“I thought I told you that I couldn’t come with you today Sherlock. It’s London Poppy Day.” He received a blank look from Sherlock and sighed good-naturedly. “I wouldn’t expect you to know this. It’s a specific day run by the Royal British Legion in the centre of London in the run up to Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. They try to boost the number of contributions taken in the city centre for the Poppy Appeal; volunteers are joined by serving Service men and women at underground and railway stations.”

He received yet another blank look from Sherlock. “I’ve volunteered Sherlock; I’m selling poppies for the day outside Selfridges on Oxford Street. I’m sorry but you’ll have to go to the Yard by yourself.”

Sherlock could only stand there as John picked up a box of poppies and a collection tin that had gone unnoticed from the kitchen and then walked down the stairs.

~*~

Sherlock took the stairs up to John’s former bedroom and what now acted as a study for both of them two at a time. He was positive that there were parallels between the current case Lestrade was working on and one from 2006 and he wanted to check that was right. Walking into the room, his attention was caught by one rather large box lying on the top of the bookcase that he hadn’t seen before. Curious, and ignoring temporarily what he’d come up for, he reached out for the box, cataloguing its dimensions and the materials it was made of before finally opening it. His hand clenched around the box and, had he not have been involved in a relationship with John, he would have been rather disturbed by the way that his heart felt as though it skipped a beat. The box was lined with velvet and lying on the dark-blue material were three medals and a lapel pin.

He had known that John must have been engaged in fire-fights; that was a given fact considering that he had been a combat medic as well as a field surgeon. There was also the fact that Sherlock traced John’s scars, both the one on his shoulder and the small one on his leg, with his tongue and his fingers every night when they lay in bed. His fingers traced over the medals, wondering what they had been awarded for, when John had received them. Picking up the box, he estimated that he had maybe two hours until John returned. Two hours to discover what the medals were for.

It didn’t take him two hours. In fact it didn’t take him long at all. Before he knew it, he was lying on the sofa staring at the medals on the table in front of him. Three medals and a lapel pin. Simple hunks of melded metal that didn’t tell him what John had done, merely that he had been recognised for what he had done. Two of them were generalised; the Operational Service Medal for Afghanistan, the campaign medal awarded to all of those who saw active service during the Afghan campaign, and then the Veterans Badge, given to all enlisted members of HM Armed Forces. It was the other two medals that had brought it home to Sherlock that there was a very real chance that, had things been even slightly different, he might never have met John at all. Lying unobtrusively on the table were the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order. One granted in response to "an act or acts of exemplary gallantry during active operations against the enemy on land to all members, of any rank in Our Armed Forces…" while the other had been “established for rewarding individual instances of meritorious or distinguished service in war” and was normally given for service under fire or under conditions equivalent to service in actual combat with the enemy.

_“Use your imagination.”_

_“I don’t have to.”_

The words from shortly after their first meeting swept through Sherlock’s mind. At the time he had simply dismissed them out of mind; there had been things of greater importance to deal with such as where Jennifer Wilson’s phone was. Now he truly understood. John had said those words because he truly didn’t have to use his imagination; he had been close to death and the medals were simply proof that, as a result of his actions, he had returned to London, returned and met Sherlock, and because of him, others had returned to their families and loved ones as well.

When John returned home carrying a dry cleaning bag that obviously contained his army dress uniform, the medals were back where Sherlock had found them and he was curled up in his normal spot on the sofa in his pyjamas and dressing gown, simply staring into mid-air giving no clue as to what he had discovered.

~*~

It was incredibly strange to be stood here, in the middle of Whitehall waiting for the King’s Troop to fire the cannons that would announce the beginning of the two minutes silence. This time last year he had been in the heat of Afghanistan at Camp Bastion, standing amidst the several thousand soldiers stationed at the main British military base, as the wreath was laid at the base of the memorial in the centre of the camp. It had been a solemn moment then, all the more poignant by the critically wounded soldier who had bled out in front of John during surgery the previous day, but today somehow it was a more solemn affair.

Today he wasn’t simply stood amongst those men and women who were currently serving in battle-zones across the world, he was stood amongst men and women who had served in battles and wars the world over, men and women who had been to hell and back yet they had survived. He had been completely amazed when he had been asked to take part in the parade and he had never been as proud as he was now, marching with the other veterans of the RAMC. The crowds lining the route of the parade were fifteen deep in places and they had been there for nearly an hour now.

Along with hundreds of others stood in the middle of Whitehall, he flinched at the sound of the cannons being fired on Horse Guards Parade swiftly followed by the buglers of the Royal Marines sounding the Last Post. He was quite far back in the parade so he couldn’t see what was going on once the end of the two minutes silence had been announced by the trumpeters of the Royal Air Force playing the Reveille but he knew what was happening. The Queen and senior members of the Royal Family were laying wreaths at the base of the Cenotaph followed by the Prime Minister, various politicians and then foreign dignitaries. Before too long, the parade itself was moving forward to the applause of the gathered crowds, the various different marching groups placing a wreath at the base of the Cenotaph before moving on to Horse Guards Parade.

Turning his head to offer his salute to the Royal Family, his eyes caught sight of a familiar mop of curls standing at the back of all of the politicians and sliding his eyes a fraction of an inch to the left there was another familiar figure. Two people that he hadn’t expected to see here. Both wearing solemn looks and accompanied by bright red poppies in the lapels of their coats.

 ~*~ _  
_

_They went with songs to the battle, they were young._

_Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow._

_They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,_

_They fell with their faces to the foe._

_They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:_

_Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn._

_At the going down of the sun and in the morning,_

_We will remember them._

**Author's Note:**

> Further Notes: The poems used are traditionally recited at the Remembrance Day parade at the Cenotaph in London. The first is ‘In Flander’s Fields’ by John McRae and the second is by Laurence Binyon and is generally referred to as the Ode to Remembrance.
> 
> I have no idea if a member of the RAMC would be entitled to the Veterans Badge – my research said that it was issued to all enlisted members of HM Armed Forces regardless of length of service so I’m assuming that they would. I also don’t know if ex-servicemen would take part in London Poppy Day in full uniform but for the basis of this I’m assuming they would.


End file.
